Archival Tape -- Maha Hussaini:

“I'm reporting what I'm going through day by day. We haven't slept for the past three or four days except for a few interrupted hours. It is hard, actually, because I'm, at the same time, I'm fearing for my life and for my family's life. I'm also reporting the stories of other victims who I might be one of them in the upcoming hours. So I'm not sure if I'm going to survive or if I'm going to make it for another day.”

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RUBY:

From Schwartz Media, I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am.

For the past week the Palestininian territory of the Gaza Strip has been under intense aerial bombardment.

Last Sunday was the deadliest day in the conflict so far. Two Israeli airstrikes in Gaza killed at least 43 Palestinians, including eight children. On the same day, more than 100 rockets were fired from Gaza towards Israel.

Today - world editor for The Saturday Paper Jonathan Pearlman on why the violence in Israel and Palestine is at its worst point in years.

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RUBY:

Jonathan, in the past week, we've seen the biggest Israeli offensive into Gaza since the 2014 war. How did we get to this point?

JONATHAN:

Yes, so there's so many points that you could start to answer this question. It is a conflict in a region with a very long, contested history. But I think the place to start really is what's been happening in Sheikh Jarrah, a small neighbourhood in Jerusalem in the past few weeks.

So Sheikh Jarrah is a neighbourhood in East Jerusalem, which was captured by Israel in 1967 - that was the Six Day War - and since then, Israel has occupied the city. The international community sees that occupation as illegal.

This is a very small neighbourhood close to the Old City, close to the Damascus Gate in Old City, where there's been tensions for decades, really about efforts by Jewish settlers and far right groups to evict some Palestinians who've been living there, most of them since the 1950s. And it's been a long running case.

But it was all coming to a head last Monday when the Supreme Court was expected to issue orders most likely to order the eviction of a number of Palestinian families there. And this is a really significant issue and cause of tension because it goes beyond just a number of households in this tiny suburb in East Jerusalem.

For the Palestinians, I think it evokes memories of the houses and villages that many of them were forced to leave behind, you know, particularly after the 1948 war.

So that was the immediate trigger, was that there were tensions about this court case. But there's been growing tensions for some time in Jerusalem.

And in response to the planned evictions of the Palestinians in Sheikh Jarrah, Palestinians have been protesting in the area.

RUBY:

Hmm, so that is one catalyst for the protests, but can you tell me more about those other tensions?

JONATHAN:

So there's been a lot of tensions in Jerusalem in recent weeks, particularly since the start of Ramadan in mid-April, Israeli police ordered a number of operations around the Al-Aqsa mosque.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Reporter #1:

“Hundreds of Palestinian protesters were injured over the weekend in clashes with Israeli police in the area around the Al-Aqsa mosque, a frequent flashpoint in recent weeks…”

JONATHAN:

There was a big incident on Friday, May 7, where police fired stun grenades and rubber bullets at Palestinians who were throwing stones.

And then on Monday, which was the day that the Supreme Court was about to hand out its Sheikh Jarrah decision, there was going to be this march that Israeli nationalists were planning to hold to celebrate what they call Jerusalem Day, which marks the capture in 1967 of East Jerusalem and the Old City.

So all of this really combined to create an incredibly tense situation. And it came to a head last Monday morning when police ordered another raid on the Al-Aqsa compound.

In the end, Israeli police shot, again, stun grenades, rubber bullets at Palestinians. And about 500 Palestinians were injured. A number of police were injured.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Civilian, translated to English:

“There are bombs in Al-Aqsa Mosque! They are suffocating us in Al-Aqsa mosque…”

JONATHAN:

And those scenes really capped off what we'd seen since the start of Ramadan and this really tense confrontation at the heart of Jerusalem.

RUBY:

Mm hmm. And so what happened next?

JONATHAN:

So at 5:00 p.m. on the Monday, Hamas, the Islamist militant group that controls Gaza, warned Israel that it was giving an hour for Israeli forces to withdraw from the Al-Aqsa Mosque and also from Sheikh Jarrah. And just a few minutes after that deadline expired, Hamas fired rockets into Israel and Israel then launched its own series of airstrikes.

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Reporter #2:

“In the space of just a day, a major escalation that few had expected...”

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Reporter #3:

“Israel’s carried out airstrikes on Gaza hours after rockets were fired from the territory towards Jerusalem...”

Archival Tape -- Unidentified Reporter #4:

“Airstrikes and missile launches killing at least 53 people in Gaza and at least 7 in Israel…”

RUBY:

And, Jonathan, since then, we've seen these rocket attacks and the bombardment of Gaza continue and worsen. So tell me what things are like on the ground now.

JONATHAN:

Well, they’re terrible, really.

Archival Tape -- Maha Hussaini:

“I spoke to numerous victims and families who have been bombed and all of them actually told me that they haven't been warned before their houses or homes were bombed.

This is Maha Hussaini, I'm a human rights activist and also a journalist in the Gaza Strip. I'm now at home and the west of Gaza and Telahawa street or neighbourhood, where most of the shelling was actually last night.”

JONATHAN:

Israel is conducting airstrikes in Gaza, which is a densely populated corner at the southern end of Israel.

And Israel says it's attacking Hamas militants and targets in order to to stop Hamas firing rockets. But the Israeli air strikes inevitably in an area where it's mainly apartment buildings, densely populated residential areas.

Archival Tape -- Maha Hussaini:

“The Israeli media, by the way, reported that more than two hundred Israeli warplanes were bombing different districts of the Gaza Strip only last night. So you can imagine two hundred warplanes are bombing an area of three hundred and fifty six kilometres with two million residents in one of the most densely populated on earth…”

JONATHAN:

It's hit one of the main roads leading to the main hospital in Gaza, Shifa Hospital.

Israel has destroyed high rise building in Gaza that housed media outlets, including the Associated Press and Al-Jazeera.

Archival Tape -- Maha Hussaini:

“We are actually being silenced in the Gaza Strip whether journalists who have been getting targeted since the beginning of this attack and also the news agencies, including international and local news agencies who have been targeted, so, yeah, it is difficult to to keep reporting under these conditions that we are trying as much as we can to continue.”

JONATHAN:

Meanwhile, the death toll has just continued to rise, a lot of civilians and a lot of children. Hamas is firing rockets across Israel. And as of Monday, the violence is continuing; one hundred and ninety two Palestinian people have been killed, including 58 children and 10 Israeli people have been killed, including two children.

Archival Tape -- Maha Hussaini:

“I have spoken yesterday to that one resident of a shelter refugee camp in the west, northwest of Gaza. His name is Muhammad Hadidi. Mohammad lost three of his children in an Israeli airstrike and also his wife, his fourth children is still missing under the rubble. And his fifth children, the only one left, has survived. He's only five months old…”

JONATHAN:

And so there's a war going on, really.

RUBY:

Mm and, Jonathan, does it look like there's any chance that the air strikes might come to an end anytime soon? What are we hearing about that from the Israeli government?

JONATHAN:

It doesn't really look like there's any sort of imminent end to this, at least judging from what the Israeli government has said so far.

Archival Tape -- Benjamin Netanyahu:

“Israel has responded forcefully to these attacks and we will continue to respond forcefully until the security of our people is reinstated and restored.”

JONATHAN:

Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, said this is going to keep going...

Archival Tape -- Benjamin Netanyahu translated to English:

“So yesterday I told those Sons of Darkness, the Hamas and Islamic Jihad terrorists, that their blood is forfeit.”

JONATHAN:

He said that ‘we will extract a very high price from Hamas’.

Archival Tape -- Benjamin Netanyahu translated to English:

“...and this is just the beginning. We'll hit them like they've never dreamed possible.”

JONATHAN:

Israel doesn't really show any sign of letting up and nor does Hamas.

But the other thing that's playing out in the background against this conflict is the political crisis that's going on in Israel.

Archival Tape -- Benjamin Netanyahu:

“I'm confident in the resolve and determination of the people of Israel. Just as we've always done, we will weather the storm, and emerge stronger than ever. Thank you.”

RUBY:

We’ll be back in a moment.

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RUBY:

Jonathan, can you tell me about the political situation in Israel leading up to this conflict and how it relates to the bloodshed that we're seeing now?

JONATHAN:

Yes, so Israel has just held four elections in the past two years and has had this ongoing political crisis where it has just held election after election and been unable to produce a workable coalition.

Netanyahu is really in the sort of political struggle of his life. He's Israel's longest serving prime minister, but he is facing criminal fraud trial and he's been desperately trying through successive elections to remain prime minister, which will put him in a position where he will avoid really having to face these fraud charges.

I think that the escalating tensions that we've seen in Jerusalem, I mean, the Israeli government's really poor handling of that is maybe a consequence of the fact that the government has been so distracted by the politics and the effort to try to remain in power.

But now, as a result of this war, you know, Netanyahu has an opportunity to present himself as a wartime leader, the tested wartime leader who's been in power for a long time. And so far, that is really working because the opposition has basically fallen apart. So it really looks like this latest crisis has helped to keep Netanyahu in power for the foreseeable future.

And on the Palestinian side there's been a separate political crisis going on, which which is that the Palestinians were supposed to hold elections for the parliament and the president now and over the coming weeks and the Palestinian president, Mahmoud Abbas, cancelled those elections because really because he was fearing that that his ruling Fatah party was in disarray and were going to lose to Hamas.

So politics in Israel and on the Palestinian side have sort of been been part of the background of this conflict.

RUBY:

Mm ok, and Jonathan, what's the reaction to all of this being from the international community, from places like the U.S. and also from our politicians here in Australia?

JONATHAN:

Yeah, so it's been a real test for Joe Biden, who came to office really looking to continue America's disengagement from the Middle East and now suddenly finds himself facing this conflict in the Middle East.

He has strongly backed Israel's right to defend itself and, you know, expressed unwavering support for Israel. But he's also urged Netanyahu to protect civilians and journalists.

Interestingly, there's been, you know, some small split occurring within the Democrats - we’re seeing sort of a wing of the Democrats, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez issuing statements saying that Biden is not acknowledging Israeli aggression and avoiding criticising Israeli human rights violations. So that's been what's happening, really from America.

More generally across the international community, we're hearing calls for both sides to de-escalate.

And Australia has joined in with those calls. It expressed deep concern about the escalating violence in Israel and Gaza and the West Bank.

So the United Nations Middle East envoy Tor Wennesland said in a tweet, “Leaders on all sides have to take the responsibility of de-escalation.”

RUBY:

Hmm and Jonathan, the UN report after the 2014 war in Gaza found that 1400 Palestinian civilians and 6 Israelis were killed. The UN said much of the destruction could be blamed on Israel’s use of weaponry. So how much should that - the differences in resources and weaponry, the uneven death toll - be taken into consideration when you hear these calls for de-escalation on both sides?

JONATHAN:

Well, I think that you know, we've seen from previous conflicts between Israel and Hamas what happens. And we're seeing the same pattern emerge this time, which is, you know, yes, Israel has much more sophisticated weaponry and its attacks on Gaza lead to enormous loss of life.

And, you know, I think that the deeper problem is that beyond this conflict, there needs to be some broader diplomatic and political process to try to address these tensions and to address this conflict. And, you know, we just haven't seen any sign of that for a long time.

Netanyahu hasn't really had, it seems, any sort of strategy to try to resolve the conflict. His strategy is to pursue the status quo, which has made life very difficult for the Palestinians on the ground in the West Bank and Gaza and, you know, has involved continued Israeli settlement building, but without any diplomatic process, diplomatic talks.

RUBY:

And it’s now been more than 50 years since the 6 day war, when East Jerusalem became occupied, there is still no Palestinian state. Palestinians remain under occupation. A recent Human Rights Watch report said what was going on in certain areas amounted to the crimes of apartheid and persecution. To what extent is that underlying what we’re seeing now?

Archival Tape -- Maha Hussaini:

“There are drones everywhere, actually. Can you hear it now and bumping artillery shells?”

JONATHAN:

Well, I think life is difficult for many Palestinians in West Bank and Gaza.

Archival Tape -- Maha Hussaini:

“Yesterday, they have bombed a building where two of the main Internet distributors were, so yeah, we're now threatened with complete cut of Internet.”

JONATHAN:

The Palestinians inside Israel, I think, have long complained of discrimination, of lack of public funding, and government funding, for their communities and so we’re seeing an expression of that.

Archival Tape -- Maha Hussaini:

“It's not only Internet, but also electricity. We have only four out of twenty four hours of the day of electricity.”

JONATHAN:

I think that the the underlying conditions for the for the Palestinians and the need to find some way that the restrictions on Palestinian life in the West Bank and Gaza can end. And that the Palestinians can achieve independence or statehood or sovereignty or some sort of more hopeful future, I think is definitely adding to the tensions that have led to this conflict.

Archival Tape -- Maha Hussaini:

“We're talking here about a 73 year occupation against Palestinians where Palestinians were oppressed for years, we are under oppression and excessive force.”

JONATHAN:

There needs to be some sort of forward looking political and diplomatic process, but efforts to do that in the past have failed and unfortunately, there's not great hope that any sort of process is going to succeed now.

RUBY:

Jonathan, thank you so much for your time today.

JONATHAN:

Thanks Ruby.

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RUBY:

Also in the news today…

The chief executive of Virgin Australia has called for the country’s borders to be reopened before the stated goal of mid-2022, even if it leads to some people dying.

The airline boss said as long as vaccination levels were high enough the country should take the risk of fully opening again.

I’m Ruby Jones, this is 7am. See ya tomorrow.

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